The Lions Aquatic Centre's pool deck was jammed packed this past weekend with a combination of swimmers, volunteers and supporters for the ninth annual Ryan Downing Memorial Swim Meet.

The two-day meet was held Friday and Saturday and included around 135 swimmers from teddy bears up to masters. The first Yukon meet of the season also included the members of the Haines Dolphins Swim Club, which brought around 20 swimmers.

"They are really wonderful," said meet manager Sue Harding about the Haines Dolphins. "(The Haines club) had more swimmers this year than they have brought before. It's nice, they don't usually bring older swimmers, but they bring lots of the younger swimmers, so it's a great opportunity for our younger swimmers and their younger swimmers to compete."

The Ryan Downing Memorial is a best times meet, which awards personal best ribbons instead of medals, with the one exception of the 50-m freestyle category.

The different types of volunteers included timers, stroke and turn judges, a head timer a referee, a starter, timing booth and meet manager.

Harding said the event couldn't happen without the number of volunteers that help out.

Kathryn Zrum, coach of the black bears, said her group did very well at the meet.

"Overall my group did remarkably well," she said. "For a lot of them they haven't had a lot of swim meet experience and exposure, so I think from when we started the very first week in September to now they have come a long way."

Sixteen of the 20 swimmers in the black bear program participated in the Ryan Downing meet.

In preparation for the Ryan Downing swim competition, Zrum held a pre-practice swim meet last Tuesday, which was open to both swimmers and parents.

At the practice meet, attendants were prepared on what to expect, the different officials that are on the pool deck and went through proper start block procedures and techniques.

Zrum said the meet was a good measuring point for both coaches and swimmers.

"That's really important, that we can see the improvement and the swimmers can see how they are doing."

Glacier Bears head coach Marek Poplawski said he was pleased with how his swimmers did at the meet.

"It was very successful," he said. "They learned a lot how to race and about some of the technical elements of the race. I think those will be the first steps for the future and they will get better. A lot of best times for all the swimmers and I think that's a good indicator that our program is doing well and I am altogether very pleased with the results."

Ashley Bray, 16, was one of the Glacier Bears swimmers that participated in the Ryan Downing Memorial Swim Meet. Bray, who is a second year Kodiak, said she was happy with how she did this year.

"It was the first meet of the year, so I was pretty happy with my time because there were a couple personal bests," she said. "I was really hoping to take off time, so it was a really good achievement for me."

She achieved personal bests in both the 50-m and 1,500-m free style distances. Bray's time in the 50-m free was 33.22, while she managed to take off 40 seconds in the 1,500-m.

Bray said one of her goals this year is to better her time in the 100-m free style by a couple seconds to 1.09.

"That's a lot to take off, but that's my goal for the end of the year."

Ryan Downing was born on Nov. 29, 1983. He was just four years old when he became a member of the Whitehorse Glacier Bears and displayed a great deal of dedication and passion to both the club and sport.

Downing was an incredibly talented swimmer, who tragically passed away one week after his 13th birthday due to a problem with his heart.